The Courtship Dance Read Free Page B

tell even Gideon about this. I am sure that Rochford would consider it a great interference on my part and would order me to stop it, so I have no intention of giving him that opportunity.”
    Irene nodded, looking amused. “It should not be difficult to find women eager to wed the duke. He is the most eligible bachelor in the country.”
    “True. I am certain that any number would wish to become his wife, but not just anyone will do. I had to find the right woman for him, which has proven to be a more difficult task than I had expected. But, then, Rochford is deserving of only an extraordinary woman, so it is no wonder that there are not many of them about.”
    “Althea and Damaris are two of them, I gather. Who else have you picked out for him?”
    “I have narrowed the field to three. Besides Damaris and Althea, there is only Lady Caroline Wyatt. I must talk to the three of them tonight and decide on how to throw each of them together with the duke.”
    “What if he doesn’t like any of them?” Irene asked.
    Francesca shrugged. “Then I shall have to find others. Someone is bound to suit him.”
    “Perhaps I am being obtuse,” Irene began, “but it seems to me that the best candidate would be you.”
    “Me?” Francesca cast a startled glance at her.
    “Yes, you. After all, you are the one woman whom we are certain Rochford would want to marry, given that he has already asked you once. If you were to tell him you had discovered the lie, that you were sorry for not believing him…”
    “No. No,” Francesca said, looking flustered. “That is impossible. I am almost thirty-four, far too long in the tooth to be a suitable bride for the duke. I shall, of course, apologize to him and confess how stupid and wrong I was. I must. But the two of us—no, that is long in the past.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes. Really. Pray do not give me that disbelieving look. I am certain of this. You know that I am done with marriage. And even if I were not, it has been too long, and too much has happened between us. He could never forgive me for breaking it off with him—not to that extent. Rochford is a very proud man. And whatever feeling he might have had for me once, by now it is long dead. It has been fifteen years, after all. I do not still love him. Even less would he harbor any love for the woman who rejected him. Why, for ages he scarcely even spoke to me. It has only been in the past few years that we have been something like friends again.”
    “Well, if you are certain…?”
    “I am.”
    Irene shrugged. “Then what do you intend to do?”
    “I…ah! There is Lady Althea.” Francesca had spotted her quarry standing beyond the dancers, chatting with another woman. “I shall start with her. I think that I may chat with her a bit, maybe plan an outing together. Then I can arrange it so that Rochford makes up one of our party.”
    “If that is your plan, it seems that fortune has smiled on you,” Irene told her, nodding toward another part of the ballroom. “Rochford just walked in.”
    “He did?” Francesca’s heart sped up a bit, and she turned to look in the direction her friend indicated.
    It was Rochford, all right, effortlessly elegant in formal black and white, and easily the most handsome man in the room. His thick black hair was cut into an artfully casual style that many copied but few could achieve, and his lean, tall figure was perfectly suited for the close-fitting trousers and jacket that were the current fashion. There was nothing ostentatious about him—the only decoration he wore was a stickpin anchoring his cravat, the head of which was an onyx as dark as his eyes—yet no one, seeing him, would have thought him anything less than an aristocrat.
    Francesca’s hand tightened on her fan as she watched him glance about the room. Every time she had seen him lately, she had felt this same roiling mixture of emotions. It had been years since she had felt this way, so jittery and filled with